LEAK: FIRST GLIMPSE OF APPLE'S NEW GRAND CENTRAL STATION STORE

Grand Central Terminal’s iconic main concourse, with its ceiling of glittering stars, will likely welcome another icon later this year: a single, glowing white apple.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials offered a glimpse Monday morning at the Apple store proposed for the train station, near the terminal’s east staircase. Apple plans to start building the gadget shop immediately, should the agency’s board give its approval Wednesday. Construction is expected to take about four months.

Apple is paying Charlie Palmer’s Metrazur restaurant $5 million to vacate its space on the terminal’s east balcony more than eight years before its lease expires. The MTA will get significantly higher annual rent: $1.1 million from Apple vs. $263,997 from Metrazur.

In addition to the space currently occupied by Metrazur, Apple will move into an adjacent, currently vacant balcony on the northeast side of the terminal.

“It maintains Grand Central as the iconic structure and place that it is,” Metro-North Railroad President Howard Permut said at a meeting of the MTA board’s railroad committee. That committee oversees Metro-North, which controls the terminal.

During his presentation, MTA Real Estate Director Jeffrey Rosen announced both the Apple store and a new Shake Shack for the terminal.

“I can’t imagine why any kid in Westchester would want to do anything other than go into Grand Central and shop at Apple and eat at Shake Shack,” Rosen said.

RUMOR: APPLE TO BID ON 15,000 SQUARE FEET IN GRAND CENTRAL STATION FOR STORE

According to The Wall Street Journal Apple is interested in two balconies that are located on the north and east sides of Grand Central Terminal — a total of 15,230 square feet. BGR has also independently confirmed that Apple has indeed been scoping out the space during the past few weeks. A restaurant currently occupies one of the areas up for rent, but it’s expected to close its doors on July 1st, which would presumably allow Apple to start construction later this summer. According to some experts speaking to The Wall Street Journal, the store could have the potential to be Apple’s most popular retail location to date. The MTA is expected to issue a request for proposals on Monday.

BROOKLYN BUS RIDERS GET REAL TIME TRACKING

New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority launched a pilot program a few months back that offered bus riders some real-time tracking information, but it's now expanded things with a whole new program on the B63 route in Brooklyn. That service is currently accessible via a mobile-friendly website or text message, and smartphone users can also scan simply snap a picture of a barcode (presumably a QR code) at a bus stop to immediately check in on the location of the next five buses that will arrive at the stop. What's more, unlike the previous program, this new system is based on an open source platform developed with the help of OpenPlans, and the MTA is actually encouraging developers to dig into the API and develop their own solutions -- which could certainly get interesting as the program is expanded across the city (the Staten Island bus line is next up). For more information visit the MTA website.